Is rooting/installing Cyanogenmod 10.1 safe?

Hello. I recently bought an HTC One and I love the hardware and the phone itself. My only issue is that Sense is just OKAY for me. I would prefer a software that I really like, however, so I was thinking of rooting and then installing ROMs, most likely starting with Cyanogen Mod 10.1. So, I was just wondering if rooting and installing ROMs is safe. Mainly, will anything terrible happen like my phone bricking or will T-Mobile terminate service? Being how expensive the phone off-contract, I really do not want anything bad to happen. Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Hey Larry. Congrats on your new 'one'. an absolutely brilliant device. I'm enjoying mine tremendously. As far as your question on rooting goes, there are many advantages to rooting your android devices. One of the main ones being the ability to install custom roms, and thereby bringinging the customization and performance capabilities to a whole new level. before I purchased my one, I had rooted my galaxy s3 and swore then that I would never have an android phone again that wasn't rooted. Just too many advantages to a rooted (super user access) device. I decided to install cyanogen mod (then 9) on the gs3 and never looked back. There are many outstanding roms with various UI's to choose from, but I found CM to give me a great balance of a more 'stock' android look with a flair of its own. As well as being, possibly, the most popular custom ROM of all. As of yet, I have NOT rooted my HTC One. I have the AT&T variant, and before rooting it's necessary to unlock the bootloader. Now as far as the gs3 goes, the bootloader came already unlocked, and there were many incredibly simple root methods available on the web. and considering I'm not the most tech-savvy person in the world, I needed an idiot-proof method. As far as the one goes, and considering the bootloader issue, I have yet to find a 'simple' (to me) root method for it, that doesnt require typing command lines, and such. And the HTC one seems to rate, overall, as a 'medium' difficulty level on the hackability scale (according to Android magazine). But they WILL come, and I'll definitely have my 'one' rooted. There are some great root apps available in google play.

As far as anything 'bad' happening, there's always a risk involved, for the tech 'non-savvy', to attempt rooting. Your device, worst case scenario, could be rendered practically inoperable. But in all honesty, if you can follow instructions properly, and have at least some basic technical knowledge, with the information available on the web (in particular by such established geniuses as XDA developers), the likelyhood of such a disaster happening is very remote. And, as I say, the things you can do with a rooted device are incredible.

So Im probably going to wait a while before attempting to root mine. But it's defenitely gonna happen.

Good luck

OH, and btw, AT&T doesnt look too kindly to having their phones rooted. At the very least, it voids the warranty on the device. and Also, If you ever want to trade-in your device, at the carrier retail store, to get credit towards a new phone on an upgrade, if you still have the phone rooted, they may not let you trade it. An option being that you could certainly un-root it.

if you stay s on,via htcdevs unlock program,it is pretty safe. with htedev unlock you only have access to system,boot,and recovery and it is next to impossible to permantly damage the phone with a software flash to those partitions,as long as you are careful and only flash roms for your phone(the one XL crowd found tegra 3 one X roms will kill their devices,but thats a slightly complicated explination)

be aware that htcdev does leave a watermark that you have unlocked the phone,and rom flashing procedures are slightly more complex. taking the next step to s off makes things simpler,and lets you eliminate the watermark,tho it does make vulerable parts of your phone like the radio and hboot,accessible,so youll need to take caution what you flash and why.

give it some thot,do some reading,ask more questions if you dont understand something- rooting/unlocking is not for everyone,and you need to be prepaired for whatver consequences there may be.

having said the above,im not a fan of sense either. ive pretty much always run cm roms on my phones. however,doing so does lose some of the features of this phone- beats,boomsound,and the camera are all gone with AOSP,so the user experience is quite a bit different. these days i tend to stay more or less stock so i can enjoy the phone to its fullest potential